Some moments of truth, Some disappearing myths - A Trek to Chandrakhani Pass & Malana : By Pankaj Deshwal

Chandrakhani Pass: Now first thing first, if you are looking for a mild trail walk into a beautiful valley you should not do it. But if you are up for a challenge and ready to climb to 3900 ft. in a day and then want to descend 2000 ft though steep mountain slopes then pack your bags, tighten your shoe laces and do it.

Day 0- Delhi- Bhunter : 2014 probably has the maximum number of long weekends as far as I can remember. It was  one such long weekend starting 1^st of October, 4days of holiday, what else can you ask for. We decided to trek to Chandrakhani Pass situated at a height of 3541 m (11600 ft.). Chandrakhani pass connects Beas River valley to Parbati River valley with Malana the utopian village as the last stop. So on the evening of Oct1^st 2014 16 of my fellow trekkers and me were waiting at the MajnukaTila for our Volvo bus to Bhuntar. It was beginning of a nightmarish from Delhi to Bhunter. Our Bus arrived 2 hours late and that too not a Volvo wow!! It was a standard bus with an AC fitted on the room and reclining seats. Initially people were about to bash up the bus coordinator but later on everyone understood that there is no point in wasting time on that poor fellow who doesn’t know what we have paid for and what we are getting. Its REDBUS.in that was involved in this fraud. It was a bad start but anyways people boarded the bus with heavy feet and heart thinking how they are going to sleep in a bus like this and start the trek the very next day.

Day 1 Bhunter-Rumsu-NayaThapru: We reached Bhunter 8 hours late than our scheduled arrival time. We stopped at a restaurant at around 03:00 PM and had our lunch. We started off from Bhunter at 04:30 PM to Rumsu which is 31 Kms from Bhunter and it can take anywhere between an hour to one and a half hour depending on the traffic and ever changing road conditions. We took a small stop at Naggar the ancient capital of Kullu which is 10 Kms before Rumsu. When we reached Rumsu it was 06:30 PM and pretty dark. We discussed our options with our guide and the pony man. He suggested we should have stayed at Naggar. But our vehicles that dropped us there was gone. There was no place to stay in Rumsu so we decided to Trek on in the night. Our camping site was supposed to be 2 hours from Rumsu and everyone braced up for the big fight ahead in the dark. I decided to stay with the Pony Man and complete the loading while rest of the group moved ahead. After an hour my phone rang, it was Sushant he told me they have found water and an open space where we can camp. That was the only good thing that happened to us since last night. As I reached there it was 08:30 PM and guys were busy getting familiar with each other. I checked the altitude and my watch showed 6700 ft. we were at the same height as Manali and a good night sleep was assured. We fixed our camps and Lilu the cook started preparing the dinner as if a Man on Mission. We retired to our camps at around 12:00 AM. Finally bad time is over I thought we going to make a fresh start tomorrow as everything is in our control now no redbus no Volvo shit for the next couple of days. Our feet and lungs were all we had to make this happen. 



Listen up – Morning Briefing in NayaThapru

Day 2 – Naya Thapru - Chandrakhani Base Camp : We woke up to a glorious morning next day at 06:00 AM sharp. Clear skies, mild breeze and bearable temperature. The group looked pretty disciplined and by 08:30 we were done with folding our tents, sleeping bags and breakfast. We started off at 08:45 AM and within an hour reached where we were supposed to camp the last night. It’s a beautiful camping site surrounded by forest with a small patch of grass in between which was sufficient for the size of two groups like ours. There was all-woman gang from Bangalore who had been camping there since last day. The entire trek is south east on the southern flank of ChakkiNala. But you can’t see the Nala after first hour from Rumsu. Initially I thought it’s going to be a cake walk as I never heard that Chandarkhani Pass falls in the difficult category. But it proved me wrong within first hours since I began the trek. The entire trek till Chandarkhani Base camp that is almost 6-7 Kms from Rumsu is uphill. At times it gets boring as most of it is through the jungle which blocks the view on both sides. There are some open patches in between but most of it is through the dense forest till you reach the base camp. We stopped for lunch on one such open patch at 02:00 PM. After lunch we started again, the climb moderated a little bit but then it suddenly became very steep after an hour or so. There was a small worship place at the top of the climb and I thought we are over the hump and there will be no more of climb. But within the next 5 mins my lungs we again crying for oxygen as it started climbing gradually again. Now the tree line was vanishing and entire valley was filled with fog and clouds. We decided to hurry up as it might rain any moment. At around 3:30 PM we caught the first glimpse of our camp. All of us reached the camp by 04:00 PM. I looked at my watch for altitude I was surprised to see 10600ft. on it. Man 4000 ft. in a day that is crazy. But all of us managed to do it honorably. It would not have been such a steep climb had we camped at Naya Thapru. But nevertheless it was 3000ft. from there as well. When we reached the campsite it was a view to behold, fog filled valley in the front and imposing Chandrakahni on the far right. It was pretty cold out there and we started the campfire at 05:30 PM. Everybody retired to their camps by 08:00 PM after dinner.



Chandrakhani Pass Base – Blue Tents Rising Against the Blue Sky

Day 3: Our luck was eluding us today as well. As we woke up it was cloudy and obscuration continued.  Finally after breakfast we started at 09:10 AM from the camp. Chandakhani is at 11600 ft. and we were at 10600 ft. already when we started, so it was not big deal. We reached the pass at 11:45 AM. There is a 360º view from the pass of snow covered peaks that will take your breath away. On the pass you can have simultaneous view of both beautiful valleys as it is just a narrow ridge between the valleys. After crossing the pass entire trail is to the north till Nagruni.We had our lunch at around 01:30 PM and everyone was delighted to see a downhill trail. But after some 15 mins all our happiness vanished as we could see the trail going up only as far as we could see. After an hour we saw big open patch of grass which we could reach after crossing two mountain ridges and a small forest that was Nagruni our halt for tonight. We reached Nagruni at 3:30 PM. Setting the camp at this place was a pain in butt. The main camping site was occupied by a Gaddi with his sheep off-course. So we cleaned the dried up straws and put up our camps. But after spending some ½ hr. there i realized that it’s not a bad site. Water stream is just adjacent to Kitchen camp and the campfire area. Nice forest all around it was good. So tonight was the N-Night like D-Day (My own term sorry about that). We had bought some local wine from Rumsu and now it was time to do some justice to it. 3 grueling days on a trek makes you feel that you know your fellow trekkers for ages whom you saw for the first time when you started the trek. Everyone had opened up and since it was all boys gang pretty sophisticated language was used around bonfire (I hope you got the sarcasm). Tomorrow is going to be pretty easy, with those thoughts I hit the bed. 



Fall in line – Pass is Here

Day 4 : We started from the camp at 09:30 AM and negotiating steep descent through deep forest till we reached the outskirts of the Legendary Malana. The trail was so steep that my toes went numb within the first ½ hr of the trek. There were fields of Marijuana where entire families were busy extracting the so called black gold “Malana Cream”. Initially it seems interesting that something that is illegal is being grown and processed so openly there but once you give it a thought you will realize it’s pretty shameful that kids as young as 7-8 years are being dragged into this muck. We reached Malana dam by 11:30 and started waiting for our Tempo Traveler. Some of the guys were pretty excited about Malana and hence we all decided to take a walk around the village before we head back home. That walk became a walk to remember. We started at 12:15 PM and Reached Malana at 2:45 PM. Excitement of many of us had died down after such a long walk at the end of the trek. As we entered the village I saw so many boys, girls, foreigners in the age group of 20-30 heading towards Malana and you guessed it right, in search of Nirvana as if Malana cream is the only source of salvation that exists in this world. Personally I didn’t like the place, litter and filth welcomes you with open arm/legs whatever it is at the doorstep of Malana. People look hostile and don’t talk to Indians and that too to Indians who are not interested in their cream. There is a village temple which if you even touch you have to sacrifice a goat or pay 2500 bucks. It’s pretty hypocritical you have filth all around you and what you only care about is someone touching your temple. Anyways we started back from Malana at 2:00 PM and reached the road head after crossing the MalanaNala at 3:00 PM. Our Tempo Traveler was waiting for us there, we hopped in and reached Bhunter at 04:45, we had a late lunch and then boarded the bus back to Delhi which was late again by 2 hours. 

Nagruni Campsite

Hawan Karenge !

 



Now that’s Malana for you – And we didn’t pay 2500 Rs for posing in front of the this temple

Note :There is another route which you can take that will take you straight to Malana village from Chandarkhani Pass but that is steeper than the one we took. I would not recommend it for three reasons. First chances of injury are pretty high due to steepness of the trail. Second Malana is not a place where you want to spend a night unless you are a die-hard Marijuana fan and want to smoke up entire night there. Third you are not going to save a day because you will reach Malana by late evening if you follow that trail and from there another hour to the road head and from there even if you have booked you cab in advance you can reach Kullu or Manali not before 11:00 PM.

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